Damage Control

By morning the photo has three million views.

By noon it's gone.

You watch it happen on Gemma's phone over the counter of the shop, her chin on your shoulder. First the fan account deletes the post. Then a statement appears from Starling Entertainment, polite and boring: The individual in the photo is not our artist. We ask that fans respect the privacy of members of the public. Then a dozen accounts post side-by-side comparisons proving the man in the camel coat is "obviously too short" to be JUN.

"He's six foot one," Gemma says. "I've seen his measurements on a fan wiki. They're lying to millions of people and it's working."

"Good," you say. "Let it work."

"You held his hand at Tongin Market." Gemma turns to stare at you. "You held the hand of a man who has his own perfume, Ava, and you're acting like you borrowed a pen."

"He was being chased. I was helping."

"Mm-hm."

"Go to work, Gemma."

She goes, but not before pointing two fingers at her own eyes and then at you, slowly, all the way out the door.

Kyung-min shows up at four.

You don't recognize him at first, out of the van. He's younger than you thought, early thirties, handsome in a rumpled, exhausted way, like a TV detective who hasn't slept since season one. Black suit, loosened tie, a can of iced coffee in his hand even though it's November. He stands in the doorway like he's not sure he's allowed in.

"Can we talk, Ava?" he says. "Five minutes."

You lock the front door and flip the sign. He sits on the edge of the low table, then seems to think better of it and stands up again.

"I'm Do Kyung-min," he says. "I've been with Jun since he was nineteen. I drive him, I schedule him, I wake him up, I lie to cameras for him. I'm the closest thing he has to a big brother." He turns the coffee can in his hands. "I like you. I want you to know that before I say the rest."

"That's never a good sign."

"No." He almost smiles. "Jun's contract has a clause. No dating. Not for five more years. If he breaks it, the penalty is..." He names a number. You make him repeat it. It's more money than you will see in your entire life, more than this street is worth. "It would bankrupt him. His mother. Everyone he's ever sent a dollar to."

"We're not dating."

"I know." He holds up a hand. "I know. And I believe you. But Hwang Dae-sik won't care what's true."

"Who's Hwang Dae-sik?"

Kyung-min looks at you with something like pity. "The CEO of Starling. He built the company out of nothing, and he built VANTAGE, and he thinks of those seven boys the way a farmer thinks of a field. He doesn't hate them. He just owns them." He takes a long breath. "He saw the photo yesterday before anyone. He made the statement in twenty minutes. And this morning he asked me, very casually, if Jun had made any new friends in Seochon."

The radiator ticks. Outside, a scooter putters past.

"What did you say?" you ask.

"I said no." He sets the coffee can down on the counter very carefully. "I've never lied to him before. Please don't make me do it again."

Jun comes at 9:50. Three knocks, then two.

You almost don't open the door.

When you do, he's standing in the alley with no mask, no cap, just a black coat and his hair falling in his eyes, breathing like he ran from the main road. The streetlamp at the end of the alley lights one side of his face gold.

"Hyung came here," he says. "Didn't he."

"Come inside before someone sees you."

He comes inside. He doesn't sit. He paces the length of the storage room, books stacked on either side of him like walls.

"He had no right," Jun says. "I'm sorry. Whatever he said, I'm sorry."

"He said you'd lose everything if someone decided we were dating."

"We're not dating."

"That's what I told him."

"It's reading." He stops pacing and turns to you. "I come here and I read. I buy a book. I follow your rules. That's not dating, that's being a customer. They can't put a clause on being a customer."

"Jun."

"I'll be more careful. No more day trips. I'll wear the mask the whole time—"

"Jun."

He stops.

You make yourself look at him. That's the hardest part. He's standing between the boxes of donated paperbacks in a coat that probably costs more than this month's rent, the most famous face in Asia, and he looks like a kid who's been told he can't keep a stray cat.

"I don't want to be the reason you lose everything," you say. "I've watched that happen to someone. My grandmother poured forty years into this place and I'm going to lose it in March because a man needed money. I'm not going to be the thing that takes your life away from you."

"You're not taking anything away. You're the only—" He cuts himself off. Swallows. "You're the only place I feel like I have a life."

"Then you need to find another place." Your voice cracks. You hate it. "A safer one."

He doesn't say anything for a long time.

Then he nods once. Short. Like someone nodding at a verdict.

"Okay," he says quietly. "If that's what you want."

"It's not about what I want."

"It should be," he says. "Somebody's life should be about what they want."

He reaches into his coat and puts something on top of a box. Ten thousand won. Exact. "For the book," he says, "I didn't buy tonight."

And he goes.

You stand in the storage room with the money and the silence, and you lock the back door twice.

You don't sleep.

At 11:59 you're lying on your side scrolling nothing, trying not to check the last thread of messages, when Gemma calls. You let it ring. She calls again. Then she texts, one word, in capitals.

TEASER.

Then a link.

VANTAGE's official channel. A video, uploaded at midnight exactly, forty seconds long, already at four million views and climbing so fast the number blurs.

You press play.

Black screen. Rain. The sound of a door bell, an old one, jangling. A shot of a lamp glowing in a dark window. A hand, long-fingered and pale, resting flat on a worn wooden table.

Then a voice, low and soft, singing alone without music, like someone telling a secret.

In the city that never looks away,
there's one room where the light stays low.

The screen goes white. A title in thin letters.

VANTAGE — LAST LIGHT.